Editor’s Note: You can read Part One of this series here.
Imitate Your Heavenly Father
In a previous article, we discussed how it’s natural for children to imitate their parents. As children of God, we must imitate our heavenly Father. In Ephesians 5, Paul shares several attributes of God that he urges us to imitate. Believers must be imitators of God by walking in love, purity, and wisdom. At the beginning of chapter 5, Paul talked about believers walking in sacrificial love. As he moves on in the passage in verses 3-13, Paul is going to transition to explain how sacrificial love should look different than what the world calls love.
Walk in Purity
But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
verse 3
Paul had just talked to the Ephesians about imitating God by walking in selfless, sacrificial love. In stark contrast, living in sexual impurity is not true love. Sex outside of marriage, even between two “committed individuals” is unloving. It doesn’t give; it takes. It isn’t focused on others; it’s selfish. Paul describes living this way as covetousness or greediness, because it is wanting something that doesn’t rightfully belong to you.
The Greek word for “sexual immorality” is porneia and speaks of all sexual sin. The Greek word for “impurity” is akatharsia and means unclean or filthy. This word can be used to describe decaying bodies in a tomb and speaks to the corrupting nature of sexual sin. For the believers in Ephesus, they were surrounded by sexual immorality and impurity. Ephesus was home to the temple of Artemis. Sexual orgies were part and parcel to the worship of Artemis. The Ephesian believers used to partake in this immorality, and they were still surrounded by it in their culture.
Just as Paul had earlier told them they should walk worthy and no longer walk as the unbelievers walk, they needed to walk in love and purity instead of sin. Their lives should be so changed and pure that sexual sin shouldn’t be named among them. The NIV says there should be “not even a hint” of immorality in our lives.
In a similar manner, there shouldn’t be impure speech in their lives either.
Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place,
verse 4a
Filthiness speaks of degrading or disgraceful talk. This is dirty speech. The Greek word for “foolish talk” is mōrogia and means “moronic talk.” This is foolish, unwise, and unfruitful talk. It’s worthless. “Crude joking” refers to turning something innocent into something obscene. These would be innuendos or suggestive joking. Impure speaking is out of place for believers. It doesn’t belong in our lives (see Eph 4:29-30).
As we put off impure speaking, we should put on something else instead:
but instead let there be thanksgiving.
verse 4b
Instead of a dirty, impure heart, we should have pure hearts that are overflowing in praise towards God (see 1 Thess 5:18). Paul is going to provide a warning to the Ephesians:
For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
verse 5
Paul is saying: “You can count on this. You take this to the bank.” Someone, even a professing Christian, who lives in an unbroken and unrepentant pattern of sexual sin will not inherit the kingdom of God. Their conduct is evidence that they are unsaved.
We see all throughout 1 John that a true believer will live a lifestyle of obedience:
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth
1 John 1:6 (see also 1 John 2:3-6 and 1 John 3:4-6, 9-10).
Christians can and do fall into sin, but they will always repent and turn back to the Lord. If the unbroken pattern of a professing Christian’s life is unrepentant sin, that gives evidence that they were never truly saved to begin with. Someone walking in darkness will go to hell if they die without being saved. This is not a popular message, so it gets watered down all the time.
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
verse 6
There are many false teachers, who are empowered by Satan, who tell people “God accepts you the way you are” and they embrace sin and immorality. They don’t preach a call to repentance for sin, because they’ve abandoned the true gospel of Christ (see Mark 1:15). They’re deceiving people and coddling them as they are on their way to face the wrath of God. Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Apostles all called their audiences to repent from their sins so that they could escape the wrath of God through Christ.
Walk As Children of Light
Paul tells the Ephesians to be separate from the unbelieving world:
Therefore do not become partners with them;
verse 7
We should not be unequally yoked in any spiritual endeavor with unbelievers (2 Cor 6:14). Light cannot have fellowship or partnership with the darkness.
for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.
verse 8
Paul reminds them that at one time they “were darkness.” Spiritual blindness and the darkness that goes along with it are the defining characteristics of unbelievers. The amazing thing is Paul says the Ephesians “were” that at one time. They’ve been saved and redeemed in Christ. They’re new creations who are now light in the Lord. They were sexually immoral and living in impurity, but they’ve been cleansed and washed by repenting of their sins and trusting in Christ. Now, they’re defined by the light in them that is reflecting Christ. This is the amazing work of the gospel to save wretched sinners:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Cor 6:9-10
Paul goes on to exhort them:
Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true),
verse 9
Because they are now children of light, they need to walk worthy of their calling (see 1 John 1:5-7). Fruit speaks of what is produced from their lives. Their fruit should be righteousness. Their lives should be marked by what is good, right, and true.
and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
verse 10
True believers will not just live however they feel like living in the moment. They’ll live with purpose and intentionality, because they have the desire to know what pleases God. How do we know what pleases God? We find that in Scripture.
Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
verse 11
Don’t be unequally yoked and participate in sinfulness. Expose it with the truth of scripture and the gospel. The word for “expose” is elegchō and means reproof, correction, punishment, discipline. We should be using Scripture to call out sin and present the gospel to others. We need to be calling people to repentance, not embracing sin.
For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.
verse 12
Some things are so wicked they should not be spoken of or dwelt upon because of the corrupting nature of sin.
But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
verses 13-14
The light of Scripture exposes sin. It shows our need for repentance. Paul references:
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Isa 60:1
Rather than embracing the sin of unbelievers and leaving people deceived in their sin, we should be calling them to repentance. As this passage shows, we should be calling unbelievers to awaken from their spiritual sleep and let the light of Christ shine upon them.
The Pure Love of God
As we seek to imitate our heavenly Father, we must reject the world’s counterfeit love that is marked by sexual impurity. True love is sacrificial and giving. The love of the world is selfish and impure. Living in sexual impurity is antithetical to the new life of a Christian in Jesus. If someone is living a life of unrepentant sexual sin, they’re giving evidence that God is not their true Father. In contrast, believers should be walking in purity, exposing the darkness of the world with the true light of God’s word. We should walk in the pure love of God, as children of the light.
(In our final article in this series, we’ll look at how Christians should be imitators of God by walking in wisdom.)
